No Stereo Mix or Line In with SoundMax HD

[scoutwert]

I have a Lenovo X61 tablet with SoundMax Integrated Digital HD Audio built in to the motherboard (as far as I can tell). I went to the Lenovo site today and downloaded and installed the most recent driver (5.10.1.5520). When I open Audacity, I still have only the Microphone input as an option for recording. I am wondering if anyone else has successfully manipulated settings to also get Stereo Mix or Line In for recording directly from the sound card. I'm pretty sure I've tried everything in the wiki discussions. Thanks.

[steve]

Have you tried going into the Control Panel and viewing the hidden options?
If you're on Vista, have you checked out the Vista section of the wiki?

[scoutwert]

Yes, I went to Control Panel (in XP) and went to Properties for Sound Recording -- only "Microphone" showed up in the list of Volume controls. Line In, Stereo Mix, Sum, etc. were not even listed as being unavailable.

[steve]

Sometimes available devices are hidden - you can get a list of all available devices from clicking on "Options" then selecting "Properties". When you find the list, then that's what your hardware has. For a listed item to show up in the mixer, it must be selected n the list. There's some pictures that show this here: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... trol_Panel
- anything not in the list is not available for your hardware.

On some modern machines (mostly laptops), some of the hardware has been disabled by the manufacturers in their drivers (you will see several questions on this forum and elsewhere about new laptops that do not have "Stereo Mix" available). In this case, updating, or down-dating, the drivers can sometimes enable more of the hardware.

[scoutwert]

"On some modern machines (mostly laptops), some of the hardware has been disabled by the manufacturers in their drivers (you will see several questions on this forum and elsewhere about new laptops that do not have "Stereo Mix" available). In this case, updating, or down-dating, the drivers can sometimes enable more of the hardware."

That's what I was afraid of - I already tried down-dating the driver also and still did not get Stereo Mix.

[steve]

A non-ideal way round the problem is to get an audio lead with a stereo mini-jack at each end so that you can connect the headphone output to the microphone input. If you do this, open up the Windows Mixer BEFORE you plug it in, then when Audacity is running, activate the record meters (click on it), then start something playing and gradually turn up the recording and playback volumes. You need to be a bit careful because the headphone output is likely to be a lot higher than the microphone input wants, so you will probably need to keep the volume levels very low.

The other non-ideal thing about it is that you will not be able to hear it playing while the lead is connected. It's not a great workaround, but it is a workaround.

[scoutwert]

Thanks - I tried that and was completely unsuccessful!

[laffer35]

Sorry to bump this thread but I tried what was suggested (minijack cable), and for me it works very well!
Even records stereo perfectly.

I did have to turn down the volume as was pointed out here.

And about not hearing what you record - I got an Y-splitter to correct that

[waxcylinder]

Don't apologize laffer35 - it's great that you posted back to confirm that the solution worked - this may well help others in the future.

WC